foundly moved that at one moment
her eyes glistened with tears which she sought vainly to repress. Yet
he, pacing there, absorbed, with head bowed and eyes that never once
strayed in her direction, saw none of this.

"And so," he said, when at last that odd narrative had reached its end,
"you know what the forces were that drove me. Another stronger than
myself might have resisted and preferred to suffer death. But I was not
strong enough. Or perhaps it is that stronger than myself was my desire
to punish, to vent the bitter hatred into which my erstwhile love for
Lionel was turned."

"And for me, too--as you have told me," she added.

"Not so," he corrected her. "I hated you for your unfaith, and most of
all for your having burnt unread the letter that I sent you by the hand
of Pitt. In doing that you contributed to the wrongs I was enduring,
you destroyed my one chance of establishing my innocence and seeking
rehabilitation, you doomed me for life to the ways which I was treading.
But I did not then know what ample cause you had to believe me what
I seemed. I did not know that it was believed I had fled. Therefore I
forgive you freely a deed for which at one time I confess that I hated
you, and which spurred me to bear you off when I found you under my hand
that night at Arwenack when I went for Lionel."

"You mean that it was no part of your intent to have done so?" she asked
him.

"To carry you off together with him?" he asked. "I swear to God I had
not premeditated that. Indeed, it was done because not premeditated,
for had I considered it, I do think I should have been proof against any
such temptation. It assailed me suddenly when I beheld you there with
Lionel, and I succumbed to it. Knowing what I now know I am punished
enough, I think."

"I think I can understand," she murmured gently, as if to comfort him,
for quick pain had trembled in his voice.

He tossed back his turbaned head. "To understand is something," said
he. "It is half-way at least to forgiveness. But ere forgiveness can be
accepted the evil done must be atoned for to the full."

"If possible," said she.

"It must be made possible," he answered her with heat, and on that he
checked abruptly, arrested by a sound of shouting from without.

He recognized the voice of Larocque, who at dawn had returned to his
sentinel's post on the summit of the headland, relieving the man who had
replaced him there during the night.

"My lord! My lord!